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Barefooters

Preface
Before we get into the full race report I need to preface this report with the fact that I have never run a trail barefoot, ever. For the past 1.5 yrs I have been training on roads, pavements and the occasional grassy oval. I had never done a race barefoot either so I am not sure what I was thinking…..oh now I remember this was Kali’s idea!

Recon Day – Friday
Arrived at Port Stephens on Friday morning and checked into the Fingal Bay caravan park and pitched the tent. I was keen to do a quick recon of the course but the family was hungry so we drove into Nelson Bay and grabbed some lunch and food supplies for the weekend. Logistics taken care of I headed off drove along the urban part of the course and up into the National Park where the sealed road ends and trail running fun begins.

I dropped the thongs (flip flops for non Aussies, jangles for Kiwis and I have no idea what they are called in other countries.) and headed up the trail. The first part didn’t look too bad.

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Then it got fairly rocky with slippery clay sections and at that point I had pretty much made up my mind to wear the VFFs. The trail crosses another road in the national park a few kms further in so I drove around to that point and did another recon up the trail. Here I found some nice sandy trail sections which gave some more encouragement to the barefoot option.

At this stage I was still in two minds about the VFFs. Shortly after the recon though Andreas (aka Spiderweb) showed up and we went up for a quick recon of the first section again and he thought looked ok for barefoot. Not long after we met up with Kali (aka KaliPjamas) at rego and inspired by them I decided, barefoot it is!

Race Day – Saturday
We all met up a few minutes before the briefing with our timing chips securely fastened to our ankles. Kali is holding the new barefoot beach shoes but they are strictly still prototype so no orders just yet please.

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We were a little slow to the race briefing, which meant we actually found ourselves at the front of the race group. My strategy was to go out as fast as I could in the urban sections so it actually worked in my favour. After a short 600m of grass and some gravel we turned and ran along the beach for 500m. Perfect, while everyone was running away from the water I just ran in it as it lapped at my ankles. A few jokes with the other runners about not getting my shoes wet and it was off the beach and onto the foreshore footpath for about 1.5km and then up into the first trail.

The first section was not too bad and I was able to maintain an ok pace. But then it started to get really rocky and difficult for a novice like me.

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About this time Spiderweb came past and was having no issues with the rocky ground. Definitely something I need to work on. Just as I was hoping for some respite from the lose rocks the trail turned into 200m of the nastiest jagged blue metal stone that I have ever seen. I call it the Devil's Playground.

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I could barely walk over it let alone run. The picture does no do it justice! And then Kali flashed by like it was soft bed of daisies yelling “bend your knees!” I tried. The worst part was the Nostradamus prophecy I felt knowing I had to come back that way. About half way across it I felt a massive pain in my arch and called out “I’m hit! ...... I’m hit!”

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I took a couple of harden the f..k up pills and headed off road for a few meters to avoid a small section of the devils playground. I was pretty sore for the rest of the race but I just tried to concentrate on my form and avoiding mining extracted, devil shaped, sadistically placed hard points of nature.

Just before the half way mark I was feeling ok though and hit a sandy down hill section that was one of the best running experiences I have ever had. One of the elites from the triathlon race had just past me so I picked up the pace a little and as I passed Kali I said… “I reckon I can take him”. I sprinted as fast as I could and overtook him and stayed in front for all of about 15 seconds until he rudely ran past and gave me a little hip and shoulder treatment. I didn’t care. I just couldn’t stop smiling about how much it must have pissed him off to have fat old barefoot runner sprint past him!

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After the turn around I took a gel, grabbed a quick drink break and headed back up the trail towards the devils playground. As I hit the rocks again Kali scooted past me again and floated over the blue metal singing “Bend your knees….bend your knees….” I tried...again...

I tried to pick up the pace in the last few kms back in the urban area and along the beach but strangely found myself chatting and joking with other runners. I finished in 1:18 which I was happy with, slow, but it was a lot of fun.

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Spiderweb and Kali were voted king and queen of the trails and I got the encouragement award and massive bruise on my left arch to prove I finished. And this photo……

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Epilogue
The encouragement of the other runners was really great and I think we had some real fans and raised the awareness of what is possible. I got everything from “your awesome”, “try the edges”, “I can’t believe you are barefoot” and of course the usual “lost your shoes” etc etc

Huge thanks to Andreas and Kali for their inspiration to ditch the VFFs. I never would have done this without them. I think we all feel we achieved something awesome and had a heap of fun along the way. Trail running is tough and but that is where I am going to spend my time training now. Thanks for reading to the end and for the support and advice from everyone on the forums.

I have been to the Bay Adventure for the last 3 years and I love this event, it is so well organised and the area is stunning. In the last few years, the standalone running events have taken place on foreshore footpaths, sand , grass and a little bit of beach forest reserve.

It was this course I had in mind when I suggested it as a good meet up event........the runners on the adventure race took a different, quite frankly brutal course along the beach and up into a hilly rocky national park......I had NO IDEA that the organisers had decided that this year ALL the running events were to be on the same course. The trail run. The course that was deemed too hard for the Mountain Bikers and given to the foot soldiers instead. OOOOPS!!!

Having run the trail event last year I already knew what was in store for us......I've only been running barefoot since Sept last year so I assumed that at some point we would have to put some sort of foot covering on. However as the weeks leading up the event went by, I began to struggle with barefoot- skin to ground vs barefoot - minimalist. I live in rural NSW so most of my training was done on, quite frankly , some of the crappiest terrain you would ever hope to see. I can't run on the grass because 1) there is none we re in drought and 2) the weeds HURT! I rarely run on the roads because 1) the asphalt is too bloody hot and 2) I'm still a beginner and it hurts more than the trail. I live on a dirt road. That hurts too!!! There is certainly no sand to play with, so its back to the scree, quartz, and shale around the dams and nature reserves.

Anyhoooo......I had planned on tucking the huaraches into my pocket just in case , but as the date loomed closer I decided that if a surface was natural and not man made then we should be able to cross it. It might just mean slowing down or changing technique. And if it really was impassable ten clearly we were meant to find another way around it. I decided it would be 100% Barefoot.....with the aim of just finishing, an not even think about a pace or time ( very different from my old shod days!!)

Met with Murls and Spider at the race kit collection on Fri evening and we all agreed SKIN TO GROUND!!!

Sat morning we got a few odd looks at the start line, although I assumed that most people thought we were going to put our shoes on after the beach leg, as some people had chosen to do. Running on the beach was awesome! Shoal Bay is a very narrow beach and the tide was fairly high so the shod runners could run in either soft dry sand or get very wet feet searching out the tiny amount of hard wet sand left behind each wave. This is where we excelled! We all picked off other runners, flying past them in water as they struggled through the heavy sand.

The hills were as I remembered them.....bloody steep....but the sandy forest floor was marvelous ( especially compare to the rubbish we have at home!)

I had been dreading the gravel fire trails as I remembered endless stretches of uneven sized rocks.....however it was the clay that really threw me! There had been rain the night before and the forest was positively steaming.....and the clay was soooooo slippery....in fact that was the only time I wondered if a shoe would give me traction? But hey ho, that wasn't what I was here to do so onward, albeit slowly.

The "devils playground" as Murls called it.....WOW! OUCH!!! BUT......I knew from home that treading as softly as possible, spreading the weight over as much foot as I could and bending my knees twice as much as I thought I should would help. (Thank You Ken Bob!!!)

The hardest part of the run for me was actually the footpath and road sections because I could feel my feet getting abraded by the surface. I really have to practice on the road more to stop friction.

I think I finished about 1.17.....which I am incredibly happy with ( and not too far off last years shod time??!!! What the!!???)

All that matters is that I ran with NO SHOES.

We all had so much fun and agreed that after crossing that sort of challenging course it left us with a feeling of , whilst not quite invincibility, but that we could at least try whatever terrain nature might throw at us and give it a bloody good go......not too assume that we couldn't do it before we had even started

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Barefooters

Nice one Murls!
I'll add my pennys worth back over in the Aussie chapter.......LOVE the "devils playground" tag.....SH!T that was hard!!!!!!

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction. Einstein

“After this, there is no turning back.You take the blue pill: the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill: you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”Morpheus

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Barefooters

Hey Peter.....it had been raining the night before so the ground was cool and wet. Thankfully the sun didn't come out all that morning, but the humidity was still quite oppressive ( I come from the bush where it has been 40* so the temp felt quite cool, hence I am the only person with a jumper on! )
We ran at 8am.
At home I can't run on the road past about 7.30 8am, but the natural surfaces are kinder.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction. Einstein

“After this, there is no turning back.You take the blue pill: the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill: you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”Morpheus